


Port of Callao

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, John Winchester Being an Asshole, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam leaves and Dean won't come with. He knows this will reduce the chance of him getting paired up in a Jager by more than half. But he has to go anyway.</p><p>Sam has to fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Port of Callao

**Author's Note:**

  * For [needsmoreyellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/needsmoreyellow/gifts).



> Thank you to Bre for letting me share the fic I sent her.
> 
> I do not own the rights to these characters, setting, show, or the Pacific Rim universe. No harm is intended.

Because Dean doesn't agree -- because Dean "follows orders," he's all alone. Dean is going where dad is going. And John Winchester believes in The Wall. The plans for the Wall of Life Program are finally receiving funding from the UN and work starts near Seattle in a month.

It's the first time, in Sam's experience, that John ever picked defense against fighting. He thinks only idiots sign up to fight Kaiju.

So, Sam leaves and Dean won't come with. He knows this will reduce the chance of him getting paired up in a Jager by more than half. But he has to go anyway. Sam has to fight.

He runs away to do it.

Dean wakes up in the night, as the door is closing. He darts out to the porch to stop him.

But what he says -- what he keeps saying about following fucking orders... Sam can't stand it anymore. He leaves for Los Angeles before the Ranger program runs out of funding and stops admitting potential pilots.

From L.A. he's shipped to the Lima Shatterdome. And Sam will admit he's pissed about it. Lima was a first-wave city but these days it doesn't get as much action as L.A. and he knows it's a strategic move. They're trying to relocate potentials before funding is completely lost and Shatterdomes are closed.

But it still builds on his rage. On his rage about being left alone, about Dean not backing him up, about John sending him a message not to bother coming back to his family when he inevitably washes out of training.

He leaves most his stuff in California. Everything he really needs is within him: his memories, the combat training John forced him and Dean through in their youth -- he doesn't need the pictures or the books. He's already smart. He already knows his stuff. He already remembers his family the way he wants to remember them. He will choose to love them, anyway.

And channel the anger and rage into Jager training.

He does fine in Lima. The fact that he's combat-ready on arrival skips him up through the program and directly into the ranks. But he's almost certainly headed for command and control centers.

No one can drift with him. He hardly has anything in common with anyone.

It aches, not even having friends, let alone a partner. He's in a foreign land, and he picks up enough Spanish to pass in the city on leave, to order drinks and pick up groceries, but, months into the program, he's watching the Defense Walls rise on television from where he sits, alone, in his office.

Despite the language barrier, he has to escape out into the city.

The bone slums in Lima are colorful, wedged right into the culture. Clean skeletons towering high where downtown buildings and skyscrapers once were. Some of the giant, hollow, bird-like bones of dead flying Kaiju have been hacked into at the bottom, opened and heated with wood and coals, used like giant ovens, smoke drifting from the top of the soaring humerus bones. In their shadows are locals selling rich dishes of pork or potatoes, empanadas, various grilled meats and thick stews.

He'd never been out of the country before -- it never fit into John's plans -- and he loves every minute of this. Being surrounded by unfamiliar things and getting lost down side-streets. Climbing hills and seeing kids kicking footballs at the top. Watching life move on, no matter that something may rise out of the sea to terrorize them at any moment.

Sam loves that their lives go on. That they're not the first in line to wall themselves in.

He asks a young woman for directions back to the Shatterdome. He'd wandered so far into the city that even its massive metal structure is lost behind buildings and hills. But she talks so rapidly and with so much slang that he can barely even hear the directional words she gives and he just nods politely, with what must still be a very lost expression. She laughs at him and starts again, slower.

A guy at the restaurant next door polishes off his beer and swaggers over. He's more than a head shorter than Sam and suddenly he's stepping into the conversation, trading unfamiliar words with her, almost as fast. Then he thanks her and turns back to Sam.

"This way, tall stuff," he says, and starts marching off down the road.

Sam shouts a quick and garbled 'thank you - I'm sorry - thanks!' to the woman as he turns to follow.

"You speak English?" he shouts after the guy as he catches up.

"You don't have a translation app on your phone?" he shoots back.

"I was told the towers were down all across South America. That anything besides a land-line is useless because the infrastructure doesn't recover fast enough after Kaiju attacks." His cell phone was something he left at the recruiting station in L.A.

Dean and dad wouldn't call him anyway.

"Yeah, I speak English," the guy says wryly, "and, you know, most other people here do, too. You just have to ask."

Sam is hiking uphill with him, shoulder-to-shoulder (if that can be said at their differing heights), now, feeling like a dumb American. "I'm Sam," he offers to change the subject.

"Ranger Winchester, I know," the guy nods. "I've heard you're some kind of kwoon combat all-star."

"You work in the 'Dome?"

"I'm new in town. Gabriel," he smiles up at Sam, "by the way."

"Nice to meet you."

"So why is that, anyway? You feel the need to beat up every pilot candidate or something?"

Sam drops his head and watches his feet as they cross over some rubble. It's kind of a sore subject.

Gabriel picks up on that. "Aaah. Not drift-compatible with anyone," Gabriel says, like that's not a slap in the face to a would-be pilot.

"Not _yet_ ," Sam insists. He'd be in a Jager by now, already, if Dean had come with him. They'd be positively _ruining_ Kaiju if they were here together.

It's hard not to let the bitterness show, so after a moment of cold silence, Gabriel agrees. "Right. Not yet."

It turns out that Gabriel's been all over. He's been with the program for a few years but was never bothered by his lack of compatibility in the drift. He just moved on from defense depot to defense depot helping the Germans and Chinese, mainly, as they developed new weapons to install in the arms of the Jagers.

He can do all kinds of tricks in the simulator -- things people have never seen. Things they don't believe. But he doesn't have a solid, stable companion to turn his flash and show into actual combat and destruction.

They see each other in passing and, since Gabriel's got so many more languages than Sam, they go out to exotic shops and dangerous dive bars together in the city.

Gabriel likes getting lost, too. And eating virtually everything in sight.

One day Sam is ordered back to the kwoon combat room. It's never exciting anymore. He knows he's gonna kick someone's ass and end up alone again by the end of the day.

Gabriel is the one who's been ordered there to test against him.

Training is mandatory, so even if Gabriel's smaller than him, Sam knows he's still in good practice, despite his position in Weapons & Ammunition.

Gabriel expertly swings his weapon to warm up. And Sam can read the lines of him.

He sees the strength in that small frame and respects Gabriel's cunning. He sees the smug satisfaction of the few pranks he's been able to pull on Sam in their short acquaintance, and he sees how smart Gabriel is. That he hides it behind a smartass façade.

They don't know each other _well_ yet -- but they know each other. And Sam smiles as he steps onto the mat.

Gabriel smiles, too.

Hit for hit, the match comes out even.

Marshal Harvelle, who oversaw the match, who finally commanded them into the same combat room, who has been watching them orbit closer each week-- she nods at them as they're panting, rolling around on the floor, exhausted. Evenly matched.

"Think you boys are ready for a test-drive?" she looks all-knowing as she crosses her arms, satisfied.

Sam rolls his head on the mat to look at Gabriel. Matching grins. They both chime in at the same time:

"Yes, ma'am."

Their first drift is in the _Exorcizamus_ , a Jager that's purged seven Kaiju from this earth and been half-destroyed twice, along with her pilots.

And if their match in combat hadn't been close enough, Sam is amazed to find that they have more in common than they ever could have found out without busting into each other's heads.

The dreamy zip of the drift takes him through Gabriel's life, and Gabe through his.

Both basically runaways. Both left their family behind. Both with a passion for exploration, for travel, for fighting their personal demons by striking down the creatures who would seek to harm others.

Both had passionate personal affairs that broke their hearts. Gabriel sees Jess, sees Ruby. Sam sees Kali, sees Fergus. And now, they see one another, shining and new, significant in the drift. Joyful at their connection.

They both have so much hope, no matter how often they get dashed against the rocks.

And suddenly the sucking time-warp of their lives passes and stops hard in the present. And they see the glowing Jager control panels through each other's eyes.

The test is a success. Finally, Sam is no longer a useless freeloader on the Jager program. Finally he has found his companion in the drift.

When they talk about drift hangovers, they're not fucking kidding.

Sam gets a violent craving for sweets and finds himself in the mess hall at midnight, laughing at Gabriel as he picks through a salad, confusion across his face.

He dreams of Gabriel's terrifying older brothers. A family in chaos and him in the middle of it, trying to defuse anger with humor.

It never worked. He'd fled, just like Sam had fled John's commands and his unyielding disappointment.

They find they are sad together. And happy together. Comfortable together. Sam gets a companion for his morning runs and spars. Gabriel reads books and comics and finally has someone to discuss them with. Everyday things are made more beautiful through the eyes of the other man who appreciates them.

When they slip into the drift, when they are strapped into _Exorcizamus_ \-- Gabriel on a raised platform, the two of them truly shoulder-to-shoulder -- they flow together.

There is a Kaiju approaching the shore. It flattened the first machine it came up against and is headed east, into their waiting arms.

Into their advanced arms and armaments.

A Category II fire-breather. Codename: "Hellhound."

Sam and Gabe share the same smirk through their drift.  
They're so ready for this.


End file.
